Once again radio woes kept us on our toes fishing Day 1 of the 2016 & 30th Anniversary Lizard Island Black Marlin Classic. With the repeater on top of Lizard (Cook’s Look) not functioning, the fleet were cut in two with radio communication. Most were on the Cooktown repeater and also on the results I can share, but boats to the north communicated with Bob on line-of-sight channel 10. So these results should be considered provisional at best – and yes, I was able to tweet this time!

The fish were quick out of the blocks and plenty of them too which was a great results after the quieter fishing that plagued the recent 50th Anniversary celebrations.  But if I asked you to guess who caught the first fish after just 20 minutes, you could probably get it first go? …. yep Askari. Capt. Corey Hard’s charge putting a tag in the first fish, estimated at 150lbs for James Thackery who went on to tag two more fish on Day 1 to put the team on three tags at cease fishing.  Though not surprising for boats noting the small fish showing up on the edge in numbers in the last week, the small fish ruled the day entirely with most tags in the 100-200lb range and as small as 70lb.

Pipping Askari on Day 1 and the first boat to reach three tags and take the lead on countback was Capt. Bobby Jones’ Iceman.  The Whitsunday’s fleet was also represented at the top of the leaderboard with Capt. Ashley Matthrew’s Reel Easy also tagging three.

The first of the ladies (according to my results) on the board was Sharon Poulter on Think Big. The female trophy will again be hotly contested in 2016 with several experienced woman competing.  Sharon’s tag was closely followed by Sue Ahlers tagging on Hellraiser. Sue’s fish was one of the larger at 300lbs.

But their has to be a big fish in there somewhere, and fortunately for us on Capt. Luke Fallon’s KEKOA we found her with less than 10 minutes of fishing to go. A big black swoosh on the teaser followed by the big bite on the big bait which was tagged at 800lbs (video still above) for angler Brian Lueke, and also satellite tagged for the comp’s Great Marlin Race. The fish was the second for Brian for the day.

Update: I’ve updated here. My error! Previous winner Tomonori Omi on Capt. Ross Finlayson’s Top Shot also had his chances with one tag as well as a couple of lost fish including one at cease fishing.

I had a total of 26 tags for the day with 33 boats competing.  Standings as I have them (though I completely missed the final sked due to our fish):

Iceman leading on 3 tags on countback to Askari and Reel Easy also on three. On two tags Entourage from KEKOA.  One tag each going to Tsukiji, Hot Shot, Amokura, Wild Turkey, Kalira, Topless, Think Big, Top Shot, Hellraiser, Zulu, Cookie and Assegai.

Outside of the competition I didn’t hear too much with the exception of Capt. Haydon Bell’s Kanahoee who has been picking away and released a real nice one at 950lbs as well as Capt. Tim Richardson’s Tradition who released a small one while bait fishing.